EDITORIAL It’s well past time to raise minimum wage

Pennsylvania’s minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. That figure has been stagnant for the past 11 years. Someone working a minimum-wage job in this state could put in a full day’s labor, and after taxes and other deductions, not make enough that day to fill the gas tank on their vehicle.
When it comes to minimum wages, Pennsylvania is more stingy than the states that border it. Ohio is the next lowest, at $8.15 an hour, and even West Virginia, which isn’t known for having a booming economy, has a minimum hourly wage of $8.75. Workers in Delaware have a minimum wage of $8.25. It’s $8.60 in New Jersey, $9.25 in Maryland and $10.40 in New York state. The national minimum wage is the same as Pennsylvania’s.
People across this country are putting in full-time hours and falling far short of the “American dream,” as evidenced by the latest annual report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The organization found, once again, that there is nowhere in the country, even in states with considerably higher base wages than Pennsylvania, where someone working full time at a minimum-wage job can afford to rent an average two-bedroom apartment.
According to a report in the Washington Post, Hawaii has the most expensive housing in the country, and a person living there would have to make an hourly wage of $36.13 to afford a standard two-bedroom apartment. Even in Arkansas, which has the cheapest housing in the nation, a minimum wage of $13.84 would be required. The current minimum there is $8.50.
“The housing crisis is growing, especially for the lowest-income workers,” said Diane Yentel, president of the coalition. “The rents are far out of reach from what the average renter is earning.”
How about settling for a smaller place? The coalition found a one-bedroom apartment is affordable for people making the minimum wage in only 22 counties across the country, and all of them have a minimum wage higher than the national minimum.
On average, nationwide, the coalition found that a worker would have to make $17.90 an hour to afford what it called a “modest” one-bedroom apartment, or $22.10 an hour to pay for a two-bedroom place.
These figures are all based on what the Post report called the “common budgeting standard of spending a maximum of 30 percent of income on housing.”
Meanwhile, the report said, the focus of rental property construction has shifted toward the “luxury market,” because of increasing development costs. It said the number of homes renting for $2,000 or more a month nearly doubled in the decade between 2005 and 2015.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said in the coalition’s report, “While the housing market may have recovered for many, we are nonetheless experiencing an affordable housing crisis, especially for very low-income families.”
Of course, people working minimum-wage jobs don’t just have to pay for housing. Like everyone else, they have to put food on their tables, pay for medical care (if they can afford any), buy clothes and pay utility bills, if those costs aren’t part of their rent. At the current rates, even two people working minimum-wage jobs, and maybe taking on a part-time job on the side, face a major struggle just to get by.
Some whose level of caring for their fellow man isn’t perhaps as well-developed as it should be might just suggest that these folks “get better jobs.” But not everyone has the skills, or the ability, to get those higher-paying jobs, and regardless, we need people to work in these lower-paying positions, whether they be a gas station clerk or a fast-food employee.
It’s not too much to ask that these folks be afforded a higher minimum wage. Maybe not the immediate increase to $15 an hour that some are calling for, but a significant increase. The best way to give our economy a boost is to get people to spend more money, and folks who are trying to get by on minimum wage spend pretty much every dollar that comes in.
There’s talk in Harrisburg about raising our state’s minimum wage. We hope there’s action to follow.